---
title: "Accessibility Checker Rule Help: Valerie_Caption_HasContent"
---
import "../../../styles/ToolHelp.scss"
import { CodeSnippet, Tag } from "carbon-components-react";

<div className="toolHelp">
<Row>
<Column colLg={16} colMd={8} colSm={4} className="toolHead">

### A `<table>` element has an empty `<caption>` element

<div id="locLevel"></div>

A `<caption>` element for a `<table>` element must contain descriptive text

</Column>
</Row>
<Row>
<Column colLg={11} colMd={5} colSm={4} className="toolMain">

### Why is this important?

The caption for a table is an identifier and acts like a title or heading for the table. The `<caption>` element allows screen readers to navigate directly to the caption to get the description of the table.

<div id="locSnippet"></div>

### What to do

* Add descriptive text to the `<caption>` element.

For example:

<CodeSnippet type="multi" light={true}>&lt;table id="data_table1" border="1"&gt;
&lt;caption&gt;Boys and Girls in Elementary School Classes&lt;/caption&gt;
	&lt;tr&gt;
		&lt;th scope="col"&gt;Class&lt;/th&gt;
		&lt;th scope="col"&gt;# of Boys&lt;/th&gt;
		&lt;th scope="col"&gt;# of Girls&lt;/th&gt;
	&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;</CodeSnippet>

</Column>
<Column colLg={5} colMd={3} colSm={4} className="toolLeft">

### About this requirement

[IBM 1.3.1 Info and Relationships](https://www.ibm.com/able/requirements/requirements/#1_3_1)
[WCAG 2.1 technique H39](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Techniques/html/H39)

### Who does this affect?

 * Blind people using screen readers

</Column>
</Row>
</div>

export default ({ children, _frontmatter }) => (<React.Fragment>{children}</React.Fragment>)
